There are more and more elderly people and different diseases will affect them. How will the public care be able to face this need of care for the elderly? There are a lot that shows that there will be an increasing demand on the achievements of the relatives. How can this development be answered to? Shall the achievements be concentrated on giving support to the relatives, or will there be a concentration on nursing staff?
The purpose of the study was to enlighten who elderly people will be nursed by if a disease affects them. The study has especially examined if age, gender, education level, civil status, living or the level of nursing care have any significance for the opinion of the elderly of who they want to be nursed by. The study will also examine if the elderly will be nursed for by relatives only, nursing staff only or nursing and care by relatives with the support of nursing staff.
A quantative method is used in the study. The selection is collected from the on-going study SNAC (The Swedish National Study on Aging and Care) in Blekinge, where different information is collected from already gathered data, which has been descriptively worked on and put together.
The study shows that the elderly in Blekinge asks for care by relatives with the support of nursing staff if a severe disease or a functional impairment should affect them. A little share (20%) would like to be cared for by relatives only. This share was either married or and not in the need of care. The men could in a bigger extension than the women imagine themselves be cared of by relatives only those who asked for care by nursing staff where those that lived alone and in need of care. The older-older (80-96 years) also asked for care by nursing staff in a bigger extension than those who where younger-older (60-79 years).